When Adam (or whom ever) decided to break the covenent he had with God, he set aside his immortality with God and let nature take over (death). So, what we inherit from Adam isn't an evil, it is the abitility to die.

"And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it to Me."

im just not quite sure if your talking in reference to my first comment or are you just openly saying what you feel about metaphysics?

...Well, it happens all the time when one confuses how things are with how one feels about how things are. This is not to say that what someone else thinks is true and what you think is false; it is to say that you both are merely stating what is "true for you". Unfortunately, what is "true for you" is not the same thing as what is "true in fact". So what is "true in fact"? In this case, I'm afraid the answer is imponderable.

At any given time, in whatever given context, "true in fact" would usually imply a majority approval of some sort: In a court of law it might take the form of a jury verdict; in the scientific arena it might arise from peer approval, and so on.

"Truth" is otherwise a metaphysical concept, and as such it is a notoriously perilous one to fool around with.

If there are not so many breakthroughs in "the meaning of life" lately, this is presumably because the nature of the human being has hardly changed during the past 2500 years, for the "meaning of life" for most of us is a wonderfully personal issue, and it is to that to that very point that people engage in metaphysical pursuits, the point of the person.

nor is truth a "metaphyical concept".

Truth by concensus or majority opinion is hardly "truth in fact", else for several millennia the earth would have been flat and the sun would have revolved around it. More, the idea that truth is a personal matter as you suggest for the meaning of life is equally absurd, as it childishly overlooks objective reality for which personal belief matters not one iota.

I am here reminded of the protagonist in Dostoevsky's Notes From The Underground who complained against the impossible tyranny that 2+2=4, and insisted he had a right to believe that it equal 5. And of course he has that right. But if he stands 2+2 feet away from a railroad track, and jumps the distance thinking he has yet another foot to spare, and a train happens by, that belief of his will not save him from being a mangled, bloody mess on the track.

And such is the problem with metaphysics generally when their whimsical preoccupations brush up against the real world. But as contemplative exercises they certainly serve their purpose, just not as well as the odes and sonnets with which thay share epistemic equivalence but lack the discipline of meter and rhyme.

...There must be a reality that is true in the strictest meaning of the word.

This is the world of consumerism which in a reality sence is very real-to some. But as they believe, is it nessesery? Why is it so important? But it is their reality never the less.

Who then is the arbiter of this "objective reality"?

"objective reality" is a notional concept.

At any given time, in whatever given context "objective reality" varies according to the audience, a fact which is objectively demonstrable, from the historical example and from experimental observation of human conduct."?

While the practice of Mathematics relies upon axioms, the truth is usually supposed to rely upon a proof.
Everything we do requires a faith.
When you put one foot in front of another to expect the Earth to support your weight, that is act of faith, and let us never forget that "truth" is always history;
wisdom is always with hindsight;
what a dull affair our lives would be, but for the constant opportunity to update our personal software.



Your railway track story introduced a fiction, a fallacy of inductive logic.

To prove it as a truth in scientific terms you would have to conduct a real time experiment with an agreed objective standard to estimate the "belief" of the subject.

As I wrote before, "Truth" is otherwise a metaphysical concept, and as such it is a notoriously perilous one to fool around with. Words are cheap. Anybody may or may or may not pronounce this or that belief as this or that absolute truth.


One might thus reasonably propose that the railway track story would itself be a test of belief, that with a true belief one would indeed be saved from being a mangled, bloody mess on the track.



Why?

Why must there be a reality, a single reality?

I think of that as an out dated throwback to the pre-cybernetic era, stone age thinking.

In the information age it is a much more workable proposition to suppose that each individual owns an access his own particular set of reality data.



Upon examination "truth" in practice does indeed turn out to be very much a matter of market forces.

So would you say that reality is strictly subjective?

For the most part what we call "reality" amounts to a consensus of opinion derived from personal experience, but in philosophical terms the consensus is not so much of interest.

What is life?

Life is very much about the development of individuals as individual personalities, hence the personal truth of our perceptions of our personal narrative, hence the differences between us. It is our faults, our lack of truth that defines us. There would not be much of an interest to discuss this at all, would there, were we all acquainted with the very same reality?

And this is not just a poetic whimsy on my part; with the rediscovery of the Anthropic Principle science is once again coming around to thinking of the universe as dependent upon our consiousness, rather than vise-versa, human life as insignificantly incidental.

Why does 2+2=4 need an arbiter?

That a tree that falls in the forest to you does not make a noise unless attended by human audience is solipsism of the most infantile kind. No doubt in your weltanschauung, should you suddenly look away from an object, it disappears until such time as you return your attention.

I'm afraid mere interation of a view is not the same thing as counter-argument. That you choose to conveniently discount argument by mere utterance of assurance to the contrary will not suffice. This seems to be your style, I notice;

.. rather than provide reasoned rejoinder as to why the example does not exactly illustrate that which you say does not exist, you instead pout and stamp your feet, insisting your view is correct regardless. I'm afraid this will not work with me, and evidences a distinct lack of intellectual integrity.

Or don't you think the experiment offered Dostoevsky's protagonist is not objective?